Tuscaloosa City Council approves Waterfall project

A typically unified City Council cast divided votes on Tuesday to deny approval for one proposed development and approve the plans for another.

By Jason MortonStaff Writer | The Tuscaloosa News

A typically unified City Council cast divided votes on Tuesday to deny approval for one proposed development and approve the plans for another.Approved with a 5-2 vote was the residential development tentatively named “Waterfall,” a subdivision made up of townhouses, duplexes and single-family homes planned for Rice Mine Road.Councilwoman Cynthia Almond, who represents the area as part of District 3, and Councilman Eddie Pugh cast the two dissenting votes.Almond also cast the single vote for Rosewood on Fourth, a proposed six-story apartment and retail building downtown at 2140 Fourth St. That project was voted down 6-1.The council was not swayed by Ford Waters of First Paramount LLC, the company behind Rosewood on Fourth, who pointed out that the design of the building meets the current zoning rules and that he was no longer considering a third building for the site.“There’s no building like this for residents in Tuscaloosa,” Waters said.Pugh said his vote against Rosewood was based on recommendations and proposals from within City Hall.These included the work that the city’s Department of Planning and Development Services is doing to update the rules and recommendations of the Greater Downtown Plan, which was completed in 2010 but never fully implemented.Planning and Development Services Director John Mc-Connell told the council on multiple occasions Tuesday that these upgraded guidelines, expected to be complete in June, will recommend no buildings above four stories.Waters told the council that this six-story project — with 106-bedrooms in 58 units and an additional 11,750 square feet of retail space on the bottom floor — was planned as Phase I for an overall plan that will add a second building with an additional 106 bedrooms.Combined, that put the total number of beds at 212, which exceeds the number of accepted bedrooms based on recommendations put forth by Mayor Walt Maddox’s Student Rental Housing Task Force.In November, the task force suggested that the commission or the council should deny any rezoning request to allow the development of a student housing complex of 200 bedrooms or more until the city’s Comprehensive Plan is updated.“I’m trying to support the Student Housing Task Force as much as possible,” Pugh said.Waters, visibly angered over the council’s decision, declined to comment when approached by The Tuscaloosa News.“I’m not talking to you,” he said.For the Waterfall, six District 3 residents urged the council to deny approval of a planned unit development that they contended would decrease property values for existing homeowners while increasing traffic congestion on the already-busy Rice Mine Road.Developer Hunter Plott and Savoy Properties are proposing a planned unit development featuring 12 townhouses and 20 duplexes in the $200,000 to $300,000 range, 46 garden-style homes in the $300,000 to $450,000 range, 12 medium-sized homes priced between $500,000 and $1 million, and 28 lake front houses ranging from $750,000 to $2 million.The new neighborhood is expected to house about 360 people from a variety of backgrounds, from single professionals to families with children, on a 67-acre, L-shaped tract. Of this land, the City Council annexed a 41.4-acre tract on Lake Tuscaloosa between the Greystone and Crown Pointe neighborhoods to accommodate the development.Greystone residents were not pleased with the idea of sharing a border with garden homes and duplexes, which is how the layout for the Waterfall planned unit development aligns the two neighborhoods.“Why are there so many small lots, and why are they all up against Greystone?” said Kay Ward, who told the council she had been a resident of Greystone for the past eight years. “I know Crown Pointe is a more prestigious neighborhood than Greystone, but that does not make them anymore proud.”She was joined by five neighbors, each of whom questioned different aspects of the development, including the potential for increased storm water runoff into the Greystone neighborhood to how duplexes and townhouses could be approved within the R-1 zoning, under which both Waterfall and Greystone fall.City staff members explained that a planned unit development, or PUD, is used when the topography or condition of a particular tract constricts the amount of usable land to an area smaller than its actual acreage. In such situations, the PUD allows for different zoning uses to be applied as long as the residential density does not exceed that allowed under the original zoning.Also, City Engineer David Griffin concurred with the report of Jason Walker of Walker Associates, who told the City Council that, once developed, the Waterfall’s storm water management systems would reduce the amount of runoff onto Greystone by at least 20 percent.And McConnell also told the City Council that, with the included common areas and green space, Waterfall had an average of one residential unit-per-acre. This is three less than the four units per acre allowed under the R-1 zoning.“It’s not a high-density development,” McConnell said. “This is about as low as it gets.”